Andalucía suffers the pulling out of more than one million olive trees for table olives in five years
Faced with continuing losses arising from the high costs of cultivation, olive-green onions have uprooted over one million olive trees in the last five years. To curb this situation, the president of ASAJA-Andalucía, Richard Serra, has urged the Minister of Agriculture of Andalusia to request the inclusion of table olives among the sectors that receive coupled payments (CAP) after 2017.
It is a unanimous call for the entire production sector, “entamador” and packer of table olives, as has been revealed within the Interaceituna own, the interbranch organization of table olives that brings together the entire sector and presiding Ricardo Serra.
Table olives meets all the criteria required to be on the list of crops to be entitled to receive coupled aid, since it is a crop that is in losses, with obvious risk area reduction and cessation and significant social and environmental impacts. Therefore, the president of ASAJA-Andalucía, as already asked the Ministry of Agriculture, today called on the Minister of Agriculture of Andalusia, Carmen Ortiz, requesting the inclusion of table olives in this list to be reviewed before next July.
For his part, Secretary General of the Ministry of Agriculture, Carlos Cabanas, and he pledged last December 16 in the day held ASAJA olive grove in La Roda de Andalucía to defend the inclusion of table olives in the list of crops entitled to receive coupled support.
In the sector of table olives growing costs exceed income, so the abandonment of plantations and replacing them with fewer social culture is the order of the day as well, in the last five years, according to the diagnostic report prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture itself has lost 10,244 hectares of olive green onions, mainly of chamomile and carrasqueña gordal varieties, which have suffered a reduction in area of between 13 and 20% depending on the variety.
In the same vein will study the value chain posted by the very Ministry of Agriculture in 2011 and set out the declared loss situation in which are the producers. Therefore from ASAJA-Andalucía we have today reiterated the need to provide coupled aid to this sector and implement, at the earliest, the plan feasibility of table olives sector which already committed earlier directors and that the industry is still waiting.
Spain is a world leader in production and export of table olives. A product that Spanish companies sold in over 100 countries on five continents. Andalucía represents 80% of national production of table olives. The region produces 25% of the olives consumed in the world. Those companies 20,000 farms in our region, which produces 8 million are dedicated wages. While more than 400 companies, with 8,500 employees, is engaged in the processing and production of table olives in Andalusia.
Source: ASAJA-Andalucía
